Is it just me

[DOCWILLEY]

or does anyone else find it ironic that Dick Clark passes away the same year the Mayan calender ends?

[Betty So]

That is an bit odd.

[V8403]

The Mayan civilization, which reached its height from 300A.D. to 900 A.D., had a talent for astronomy. Advanced mathematics andprimitive astronomy flourished, creating what many have called the mostaccurate calendar in the world.

The Mayans predicted a final event that included a solarshift, a Venus transit and violent earthquakes.

Their Long Count calendar begins in 3,114 B.C., marking timein roughly 394-year periods known as Baktuns. Thirteen was a significant,sacred number for the Mayas, and they wrote that the 13th Baktun ends on Dec.21, 2012.
Gronemeyer, of La Trobe University in Australia, comparesthe supposed Mayan prophecies to the “Y2K” hype, when people feared allcomputer systems would crash when the new millennium began on Jan. 1, 2000.

For some reason, Gronemeyer says, people have ignoredevidence that dates beyond 2012 were recorded.

The blogosphere exploded with more speculation when Mexico’sarchaeology institute acknowledged on Nov. 24 a second reference to Dec. 21,2012, on a brick found at other ruins.
Many archeologists argue that the 2012 reference on a1,300-year-old stone tablet only marks the end of a cycle in the Mayancalendar.

“The world will not end. It is an era,” said Yeanet Zaldo, atourism spokeswoman for the Caribbean state of Quintana Roo, home to Cancun.“For us, it is a message of hope.”

For those who are thinking about how to spend what could betheir last year on earth, here’s another message of hope: According to recentresearch, the mythological date of the “end of days” may be off by 50 to 100years.

To convert the ancient Mayan calendar to the Gregorian (ormodern) calendar, scholars use a numerical value (called the GMT). But GerardoAldana, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has saidthe data supporting the widely-adopted conversion factor may be invalid.
“Remember the Y2K scare? It came and went without much of awhimper because of adequate planning and analysis of the situation. Impressivemovie special effects aside, Dec. 21, 2012, won’t be the end of the world as weknow,” the 2009 web page post says.

The answers addressed questions about whether there were anyknown threats to the Earth and the truth about the calendar.

One of answers posted was to the question of the possibleapproach of Nibiru (or Planet X or Eris), a supposed wayward planet that issaid could pose a threat to Earth. The answer was a definitive rejection of theidea.

“Nibiru and other stories about wayward planets are anInternet hoax,” scientists wrote. “There is no factual basis for these claims.If Nibiru or Planet X were real and headed for an encounter with the Earth in2012, astronomers would have been tracking it for at least the past decade, andit would be visible by now to the naked eye. Obviously, it does not exist. Erisis real, but it is a dwarf planet similar to Pluto that will remain in theouter solar system; the closest it can come to Earth is about 4 billion miles.”

[DearMilSpouse]

So we're not going to float away into outer space? Bummer I was looking forward to learning how to fly like a bird =)